Katrina survivor writes seering book about his plight
Sara Carr
Issue date: 9/8/09 Section: Arts & Society
There are rumors of rape, murder, and suicide (which only the last of these three became true). There is rampant paranoia, claustrophobia, racial tension, and a sense of hopelessness.
"As time dragged on and the horrific smell from the bathrooms grew, food lines grew as well. They now were getting to be two to three hour waits. But it's not like I had anywhere to be. The lines snaked back and forth and doubled up. It was sometimes hard tell where a line ended and a new one began. There was little control over the lines and shoving matches broke out", he says of the atmosphere in the Dome.
Though Harris sometimes slips into the mentality of despair and self-pity he never loses himself completely or his strong sense of morale. He rightly compares the situation to that of the Lord of the Flies where both the best and the worst of humanity can be revealed at any moment.
He witnesses theft and fights and yet also sees people of all races and classes coming together in the common interest of survival. He befriends homeless men as well as a large group of foreign travelers hailing from Austrailia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Taiwan to name a few.
The best of the novel is in these forging relationships. They talk about their lives, their professions, their futures, and how they ended up trapped in the same place.
The novel slips in quality in his (though duly justified) angry rants over the lack of governmental support and the failed leadership of George Bush. He leaves control of straight-forward style and opts to go into a long-winded fits of rage that over-burdened with strangely articulated philosophies, especially in the epilogue to the diary.
Though it is hard to argue against his sentiments, he needs to articulate his points with more controlled passion rather than an unleashed explosion of pure emotion.
He also tends to get a bit-preachy and overbearing again when he discusses how his strict adherance to morals and yet he also admits to falling into the pratfalls of paranoia and heresay several times.
He is human and he is flawed and for the most part he recognizes that fact. But he tends to drift into phases in which he paints himself as completely tolerant as he admonishes others for their behavior.
Overall, this is a piece of non-fiction that places the reader at the center of one of the greatest tragedies of recent memory and it does so with a great sense of honesty. He has given us a much-needed first-hand-account of the story that captured a nation and shamed a president.
"As time dragged on and the horrific smell from the bathrooms grew, food lines grew as well. They now were getting to be two to three hour waits. But it's not like I had anywhere to be. The lines snaked back and forth and doubled up. It was sometimes hard tell where a line ended and a new one began. There was little control over the lines and shoving matches broke out", he says of the atmosphere in the Dome.
Though Harris sometimes slips into the mentality of despair and self-pity he never loses himself completely or his strong sense of morale. He rightly compares the situation to that of the Lord of the Flies where both the best and the worst of humanity can be revealed at any moment.
He witnesses theft and fights and yet also sees people of all races and classes coming together in the common interest of survival. He befriends homeless men as well as a large group of foreign travelers hailing from Austrailia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Taiwan to name a few.
The best of the novel is in these forging relationships. They talk about their lives, their professions, their futures, and how they ended up trapped in the same place.
The novel slips in quality in his (though duly justified) angry rants over the lack of governmental support and the failed leadership of George Bush. He leaves control of straight-forward style and opts to go into a long-winded fits of rage that over-burdened with strangely articulated philosophies, especially in the epilogue to the diary.
Though it is hard to argue against his sentiments, he needs to articulate his points with more controlled passion rather than an unleashed explosion of pure emotion.
He also tends to get a bit-preachy and overbearing again when he discusses how his strict adherance to morals and yet he also admits to falling into the pratfalls of paranoia and heresay several times.
He is human and he is flawed and for the most part he recognizes that fact. But he tends to drift into phases in which he paints himself as completely tolerant as he admonishes others for their behavior.
Overall, this is a piece of non-fiction that places the reader at the center of one of the greatest tragedies of recent memory and it does so with a great sense of honesty. He has given us a much-needed first-hand-account of the story that captured a nation and shamed a president.
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crescentCityRay
posted 9/10/09 @ 3:31 AM EST
"hurricane devasted "America's Most Soulful City", New Orleans in 2005"
the hurricane missed NOLA.
Actually, our outfall canal floodwalls fell down without even being overtopped (at less than half their design loads) because of negligent engineering in the design of those floodwalls' foundations by engineers employed with the US Army Corps of Engineers as reported in the official levee failure investigation reports and reported to Congress by Corps leadership in June of 2006 and as decided by US District Judge S. (Continued…)
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